She nodded. ‘Very happy.’
‘Your friends, they are kind to you.’ Mamma picked up the pink kitten pencil case that Carla was about to put in her bag. ‘And the nuns, they teach you good manners. You must stop dreaming about the old school now. Thanks to Larry, it is a thing of the past.’
If Mamma wanted to believe that her nightmares were about the old school, there was no need to put her right. At least that’s what Kitty told her. I am your friend now. You must not worry about Charlie.
So Carla tried. But it was not as easy as it sounded. She’d often noticed before that when she learned a new word, it began to appear everywhere. It was the same with this new word. Murder. Carla began to spot it in newspapers on the bus. She heard it on the television. And it kept coming into her dreams, night after night.
Meanwhile, she and Mamma had to get an earlier bus because it meant Mamma could get into work before anyone else and borrow some of the new lipsticks to ‘try out at home’.
One morning, Lily got on at the same time! Carla was beside herself with excitement.
‘Do you like my new uniform?’ she asked, smoothing down her brown blazer. ‘It had to come from a special shop and it cost a lot of money. Luckily Larry –’
‘Tsk,’ said Mamma sharply. ‘You must not bother Lily. Look, she is working.’
‘It’s all right.’ Lily put down her big pile of papers and gave Carla a lovely smile, which also included Mamma. ‘It’s only homework, like you have to do.’
Carla peered at the papers. ‘Is it arithmetic? I could help you if you like. I didn’t understand it at my old school, but now the nuns have explained it and …’ Her voice trailed away.
‘What is the matter?’ asked Mamma.
But Lily knew. Carla could tell. Quickly, she was putting the papers away in her bag. Yet it was too late. It was that horrible word again.
Murder.
What was it doing in Lily’s homework? Did that mean her friend had killed someone? A real person? Not just a pencil case?
A cold shiver crawled down the middle of her back.
‘Nice people aren’t always as good as they seem,’ the Mother Superior had said at assembly, only the other day. ‘The devil can creep into their skin. We must all be vigilant.’
Carla hadn’t known what ‘vigilant’ meant until she looked it up in the Children’s Dictionary. Now she edged away. Was it possible that Lily, who helped her to cook cakes and let her lick out the bowl, was really bad? Was that why she was always arguing with Ed? Because he thought she was bad too?
‘What is the matter?’ Mamma repeated.
‘Nothing.’ Carla looked out of the window towards the park, where the last lot of red and yellow leaves had fallen from the trees and were now dancing over the muddy grass.
Suddenly Lily didn’t seem so nice after all.
Maybe – what a scary thought – she was just being nice to Carla so she could hurt her too.
After that, Carla started to get a tummy ache on Sundays. ‘I want to stay at home,’ she told Mamma the first time.
‘But Lily and Ed are expecting you.’
Carla rolled over on to her side and made a groaning noise. ‘Lily is always doing her homework and Ed makes me sit still so he can draw me. I don’t want to go.’
Mamma begged and cajoled, but it was no good. Stick to your story, urged Kitty, her black beady eyes rolling. She will have to believe you eventually. Listen! It’s working already. Now she is on the phone to Larry, saying she can’t see him because you are sick.
Later in the afternoon, Carla felt better enough to go to the park. But Mamma was not happy. ‘Your stomach ache has gone very fast,’ she observed. ‘You are able to jump and skip now.’
The following Sunday, though, Carla’s stomach ache began again. This time, Larry came round, even though she was sick. He sat on the edge of her bed. His face was solemn. ‘What do you think would help your tummy feel better?’ he asked quietly.
Maybe a bike, said Kitty next to her. A pink one like Maria’s.
‘Maybe a bike,’ repeated Carla. ‘A pink one. With a bell. And a basket.’
Larry nodded. ‘We will see what happens for your birthday on Tuesday, shall we?’
Carla felt a little catch in her throat.
‘You will be ten then, I think.’
She nodded.
‘Old enough to stop playing childish games.’ Larry’s voice was low but firm. ‘After this, there will be no more silliness. Do you hear me?’
17
Lily
December 2000
Despite my brave words to my husband – ‘I can look after myself, thank you’ – I am shaken by the anonymous note and everything that’s gone on since. Earlier today, I found myself breaking my vow as I walked to the bus stop. Something made me look back. It’s dark on these nippy winter mornings, and there is ample opportunity for someone to hide in the shadows of the bushes.
But I couldn’t see anyone.
I haven’t seen Carla for some time now, either. I hope her tummy ache is better. We missed her the other Sunday, Ed and I. Missed the buffer she has become between us, the distraction that means we don’t have to talk to each other. Missed the role she plays as a muse for Ed – his new portrait of her is really coming on – and the permission it gives me to work on the case uninterrupted.
There’s little time in my life to do anything else. ‘The Court has allowed the appeal and we have a re-trial,’ Tony Gordon rings to tell me. ‘The date is set.’ His voice sounds excited but also busy and slightly apprehensive. ‘March. Doesn’t give us much time, but they’re catching up on their backlog. Prepare to cancel Christmas.’
I suspect he’s not joking. Not long now. The berries on the holly trees are already out in force when I walk past them every morning.
Red for blood. Red for anger. Red for the jacket that Daniel was wearing that night.
‘Christmas is like a battlefield with mince pies thrown in,’ my brother had told me once. I had the feeling that this was something he’d heard, but he told it as though he’d made it up himself.
Either way, he’s right. Ed wants us to go to his parents for the day. I want him to go to mine. ‘They don’t have anyone else,’ I point out. We still haven’t come to an agreement.
As I speak, I wonder how Joe Thomas will spend the so-called festive season. Will anyone visit him? I also wish – too late – that I had never given him Daniel’s old sticker album during our last meeting. I’d crossed the line. What had got into me?
Today’s visit has to be different.
Joe Thomas’s eyes are blazing. They remind me of a tiger. ‘Tiger, tiger, burning bright.’ One of Daniel’s favourites. Joe’s almost snarling as he speaks. ‘Someone put a threatening note under your door?’
On the way to prison that morning, Tony had declared this was the time to come out with it. ‘We’ve got to squeeze him now we’ve got a court date,’ he says, his mouth tightening. ‘Get things moving. Provoke him, see if we can get more out of him. If there are any holes.’
It’s doing that all right. Joe’s jaw muscles are tightening visibly. His hands, on the table between Tony and me, clench into hard, ball-like fists. The HOPE poster is sliding down the wall.
‘What did the note say?’
‘If you try to help that man, you will be sorry.’
Tony pronounces each word very clearly, as though there is a large area of space around it.
‘I ought to add,’ says Tony with a half-laugh, ‘that it wasn’t spelled very well.’
‘Leave it to me.’ Joe’s eyes grow blacker, if that is possible. I’ve read about eyes changing colour before, but thought it was poetic licence. Yet here’s an example, right before me. ‘I’ll put out feelers.’
Tony nods. ‘Thank you.’
So that’s why, I suddenly realize. Tony wants to see if Joe has contacts on the outside. By playing on what my barrister has already referred to as ‘the client’s obvious empathy with you’, he’s confirming his suspicions.